1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a processor for an interactive system in which input is made through a web browser of a client and the processing of the input is carried out on a server side, and more particularly to a processor configured so as to separate, for storage, a display control file, related to what is displayed on the screen, in a CGI script from other scripts.
2. Description of the Related Art
There exists a system for executing various processes by connecting various types of devices to each other through a local area network, or LAN, and executing mutual communications between the devices. For example, there is a page printer for offline printing jobs of a large-scale general purpose computer via a magnetic tape or LAN.
In this page printer, a controller and an operation terminal unit such as a personal computer are connected to a LAN connected in turn to host computers. Then, a printer device including a plurality of printers and a magnetic tape device needed for an offline operation are connected to the controller, and the controller can be provided with a flexible system configuration in which the controller can mutually deal with a multiplicity of host computers and can be connected to a plurality of printers.
In this page printer system configuration, the controller functions as a server, while the operation terminal unit as a client. Here, in a case where a world wide web format, or a WWW format, is adopted, the operation terminal unit uses a Web browser.
Interactive processing can be executed by following a Web page displayed on the screen of the operation terminal unit which functions as the client. For example, in a case where a user is registered to use the page printer system, an operator presses required operation buttons while following an operation display appearing on the screen of the operation terminal unit. When the screen displays a user registration display, inputs for user registration are carried out on the display. Thus, a new user is registered on the controller through the operation of the operator, and from then on, the page printer can be used using the registered name of the user.
In this type of page printer, following the interactive system, inputs are made through the Web browser and the server executes required processing in response to the inputs. To make this happen, the controller functioning as the server is provided with a CGI script. The CGI script receives input information inputted from a Web page of the client, analyzes it and activates required processing programs in response to the results of the analysis. Additionally, the CGI script generates and processes a hypertext markup language document, or an HTML document, for the Web page so as to inform the user of the results of the processing and outputs information thereon to the Web browser. Then, in the Web browser, the information so outputted is displayed on the Web page, and the process advances to the following step.
The CGI script provided on the server for the page printer system includes analysis of inputs, execution of processed programs, control of screen and the like. Thus, as the number of Web pages to be displayed on the screen increases, the processing of the CGI script becomes complicated, and therefore the load is increased. Then, in a case where the display of the Web page must be changed with respect to the display design, a change in the description of the CGI script will result.
To cope with this, in order to change a portion of the CGI script in association with the display control, a modifying person needs to know very well the description of the CGI script with respect to the display control, processing programs and the like. Furthermore, even if a part of the CGI script must be changed, in conjunction of a required modification, there may occur a risk of erroneously modifying the description of the CGI script for a portion which should not be modified or, in contrast, there may occur a risk of failing to modify portions which relate to each other with respect to a required modification, and when those problems happen actually, the quality of the system will be affected largely and adversely.
The same thing can be said not only when the portion of the CGI script relating to the display control but also other portions thereof must be changed.
Thus, as has been described above, in the server for the prior art page printer, the CGI script is configured as an integral part, and the description with respect to the Web page control is deeply related to the descriptions with respect to other controls.
The present invention was made in view of these situations, and an object thereof is to provide a CGI script for a server which is configured such that a description for only a display control division can be changed, for example, when only the display control of a Web page is to be changed and whereby, even when another control division is being changed, an operation of changing the display control division can be performed in parallel.